Denman Maroney

Sheila Schonbrun

Denman Maroney

“Pianists have been tinkering with the guts of their instruments for nearly a century now, but it’s altogether likely that no one has explored the art of prepared piano as diligently or creatively as ‘hyperpianist’ Denman Maroney” — Time Out New York
The music of "hyperpianist" Denman Maroney is inspired by nature and the music of John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Henry Cowell, Duke Ellington, Charles Ives, Scott Joplin, Olivier Messiaen, Thelonius Monk, Conlon Nancarrow, Harry Partch, and Karlheinz Stockhausen among others. Maroney uses a set of extended performance techniques he calls “hyperpiano” that involves playing the keys with one hand and the strings with the other using bows and slides of metal, plastic, rubber and wood. He also uses a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series to compose and improvise in multiple tempos. Maroney has recorded for Innova, Clean Feed, Nuscope, Cryptogramophone, New World, Victo, Porter, CIMP, Potlatch, Erstwhile, Music & Arts, Tzadik, Knitting Factory, Soul Note, Cadence, Mutable, Finnadar, Tellus, Enja, and Einstein among other labels with Mark Dresser, Michael Sarin, Alexandra Montano, Mat Maneri, Leroy Jenkins, Min Xiao-Fen, Rich O’Donnell, Ned Rothenberg, Dave Ballou, Kevin Norton, Matthias Ziegler, Earl Howard, Hans Tammen, Gerry Hemingway, Mary Rowell, Theo Bleckman, Dave Douglas, Phil Haynes, Robert Dick, and David Simons among other artists. Maroney has won grants from Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arts Council of Rockland County NY, the New York State Council on the Arts, Music Omi, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, and the Michigan Arts Council. He was educated at Cal. Arts (MFA ‘74), Bennington and Williams (BA ‘71). He studied with Jimmy Garrison, Steven Mosko, and James Tenney among others. For more information and to hear clips and buy CDs visit http://www.denmanmaroney.com, email [email protected], call (845) 425-8944, or write to Denman Maroney, 246 Route 306, Monsey, NY 10952.